Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Volume 26 December, 1880. - Various None (e book reader android txt) 📗
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Classical And Two-Thirds Saxon. But Then All The Classical Elements Have
Inherent Meaning, While Half Of The Saxon Have None. We May Hence Infer
That Of The Significant Words In Shakespeare One-Half Are Of Classical
Derivation. Now, Of The Apa? ?E?? Mue?A With Initial _A_, I Call 262 Words
Out Of 364 Classical, And With Initial _M_, 152 Out Of 310; That Is, 414
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 110Out Of 674, Or About Four-Sevenths Of The Whole Shakespearian Host
Beginning With Those Two Letters. In doubtful Cases I Have Considered
Those Words Only As Classical The First Etymology Of Which In Webster Is
From A Classical Or Romance Root. In The Biblical Words Used Once Only
The Classical Portion Is Enormous--Namely, Not Less Than Sixty-Nine Per
Cent.--While The Classical Percentage In Shakespearian Words Of The Same
Class Is No More Than Sixty-One.
Among The 674 _A_ And _M_ Shakespearian Words Occurring Once Only The
Proportion Of Words Now _Obsolete_ Is Unexpectedly Small. Of 310 Such
Words With Initial _M_, Only One-Sixth, Or 51 At The Utmost, Are Now
Disused, Either In Sense Or Even In Form. Of This Half-Hundred A Few Are
Used In Shakespeare, But Not At Present, As Verbs; Thus, To _Maculate_,
To _Miracle_, To _Mud_, To _Mist_, To _Mischief_, To _Moral_--Also
_Merchandized_ And _Musicked_. Another Class Now Wellnigh Unknown Are
_Misproud, Misdread, Mappery, Mansionry, Marybuds, Masterdom,
Mistership, Mistressship._
Then There Are Slight Variants From Our Modern Orthography Or Meanings,
As _Mained_ For Maimed, _Markman_ For Marksman, _Make_ For Mate,
_Makeless_ For Mateless, _Mirable, Mervaillous, Mess_ For Mass,
_Manakin, Minikin, Meyny_ For Many, _Momentarry_ For Momentary,
_Moraler, Mountainer, Misgraffing, Misanthropos, Mott_ For Motto, To
_Mutine, Mi'Nutely_ For Every Minute.
None Seem Wholly Dead Words Except The Following Eighteen: To _Mammock_,
Tear; _Mell_, Meddle; _Mose_, Mourn; _Micher_, Truant; _Mome_, Fool;
_Mallecho_, Mischief; _Maund_, Basket; _Marcantant_, Merchant; _Mun_,
Sound Of Wind; _Mure_, Wall; _Meacock_, Henpecked; _Mop_, Grin;
_Militarist_, Soldier; _Murrion_, Affected With Murrain; _Mammering_,
Hesitating; _Mountant_, Raised Up; _Mered_, Only; _Man-Entered_, Grown
Up.
About One-Tenth Of The Remaining _Apa? ?E?? Mue?A_ With Initial _M_ Are
Descriptive Compounds. Among Them Are The Following Adjectives:
_Maiden-Tongued, Maiden-Widowed, Man-Entered_ (Before Noted As
Obsolete), _Many-Headed, Marble-Breasted, Marble-Constant,
Marble-Hearted, Marrow-Eating, Mean-Apparelled, Merchant-Marring,
Mercy-Lacking, Mirth-Moving, Moving-Delicate, Mock-Water, More-Having,
Mortal-Breathing, Mortal-Living, Mortal-Staring, Motley-Minded,
Mouse-Eaten, Moss-Grown, Mouth-Filling, Mouth-Made, Muddy-Mettled,
Momentary-Swift, Maid-Pale_. From This List, Which Is Nearly Complete,
It Is Evident That Such Compounds As May Be Multiplied At Will Form But
A Small Fraction Of The Words That Are Used _Once Only_ By Shakespeare.
The Words Used _Once Only_ By Shakespeare Are Often So Beautiful And
Poetical That We Wonder How They Could Fail To Be His Favorites Again
And Again. They Are Jewels That Might Hang Twenty Years Before Our Eyes,
Yet Never Lose Their Lustre. Why Were They Never Shown But Once? They
Remind Me Of The Exquisite Crystal Bowl From Which I Saw A Jewess And
Her Bridegroom Drink In Prague, And Which Was Then Dashed In Pieces On
The Floor Of The Synagogue, Or Of The Chigi Porcelain Painted By
Raphael, Which As Soon As It Had Been Once Removed From The Farnesina
Table Was Thrown Into The Tiber. To What Purpose Was This Waste? Why
Should They Be Used Up With Once Using? Specimens Of This Sort, Which
All Poets But Shakespeare Would Have Paraded As Pets Many A Time, Are
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 111Multifarious. Among A Hundred Others Never Used But Once, We Have
_Magical, Mirthful, Mightful, Mirth-Moving, Moonbeams, Moss-Grown,
Mundane, Motto, Matin, Mural, Multipotent, Mourningly, Majestically,
Marbled, Martyred, Mellifluous, Mountainous, Meander, Magnificence,
Magnanimity, Mockable, Merriness, Masterdom, Masterpiece, Monarchize,
Menaces, Marrowless_.
Again, A Majority Of Shakespearian _Apa? ?E?? Mue?A_ Being Familiar To Us
As Household Words, It Seems Impossible That He Who Had Tried Them Once
Should Have Need Of Them No More. Instances--All With Initial _M_--Are
As Follows: _Mechanics, Machine, Maxim, Mission, Mode, Monastic, Marsh,
Magnify, Malcontent, Majority, Manly, Malleable, Malignancy, Maritime,
Manna, Manslaughter, Masterly, Market-Day-Folks, Maid-Price, Mealy,
Meekly, Mercifully, Merchant-Like, Memorial, Mercenary, Mention,
Memorandums, Mercurial, Metropolis, Miserably, Mindful, Meridian, Medal,
Metaphysics, Ministration, Mimic, Misapply, Misgovernment, Misquote,
Misconstruction, Monstrously, Monster-Like, Monstrosity, Mutable,
Moneyed, Monopoly, Mortise, Mortised, Muniments_, To _Moderate_, And
_Mother-Wit_ These Words, And Five Thousand More Equally Excellent,
Which Have Remained Part Of The Language Of The English-Speaking World
For Three Centuries Since Shakespeare, And Will No Doubt Continue To
Belong To It For Ever, We Are Apt To Declare He Should Have Worn In
Their Newest Gloss, Not Cast Aside So Soon. Why Was He As Shy Of
Repeating Any One Of Them Even Once As Hudibras Was Of Showing His
Wit?--
Who Bore It About,
As If Afraid To Wear It Out
Except On Holidays Or So,
As Men Their Best Apparel Do.
This Question, Why A Full Third Of Shakespeare'S Verbal Riches Was Never
Brought To Light More Than Once, Is Probably One Which Nobody Can At
Present Answer Even To His Own Satisfaction. Yet The Phenomenon Is So
Remarkable That Every One Will Try After His Own Fashion To Account For
It. My Own Attempt At A Provisional Explanation I Will Present In The
Latter Part Of This Paper.
Let Us First, However, Notice Another Question Concerning The _Apa?
?E?? Mue?A_--Namely, That Which Respects Their _Origin_. Where Did They
Come From? How Far Did Shakespeare Make Them? And How Far Were They
Ready To His Hand? No Approach To Answering This Inquiry Can Be Made For
Some Years. Yet As To This Matter Let Us Rejoice That The Unique
Dictionary Of The British Philological Society Is Now Near Publication.
This Work, Slowly Elaborated By Thousands Of Co-Workers In Many Devious
Walks Of Study On Both Sides Of The Atlantic, Aims To Exhibit The First
Appearance In a Book Of Every English Word. In Regard To The Great Bulk
Of Shakespeare'S Diction It Will Enable Us Ten Years Hence To Determine
How Much Of It Was Known To Literature Before Him, And How Much Of It He
Himself Gathered Or Gleaned In Highways And Byways, Or Caused To Ramify
And Effloresce From Saxon Or Classical Roots And Trunks, Thus "Endowing
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 112His Purposes With Words To Make Them Known." Meantime, We Are Left To
Conjectures. As Of His Own Coinage I Should Set Down Such Vocables As
_Motley-Minded, Mirth-Moving, Mockable, Marbled, Martyred, Merriness,
Marrowless, Mightful, Multipotent, Masterdom, Monarchize_, Etc. Etc.
But, However Much Of His Linguistic Treasury Shakespeare Shall Be Proved
To Have Inherited Ready-Made--Whatever Scraps He May Have Stolen At The
Feast Of Languages--It Is Clear That He Was An Imperial Creator Of
Language, And Lived While His Mother-Tongue Was Still Plastic. Having A
Mint Of Phrases In His Own Brain, Well Might He Speak With The Contempt
He Does Of Those "Fools Who For A Tricksy Word Defy The Matter;" That
Is, Slight Or Disregard It. He Never Needed To Do That. Words Were
"Correspondent To His Command, And, Ariel-Like, Did His Spiriting
Gently."
In A Thousand Cases, However, Shakespeare Cannot Have Rejected Words
Through Fear Lest He Should Repeat Them. It Has Taken Three Centuries
For The World To Ferret Out His _Apa? ?E?? Mue?A_: Can We Believe That He
Knew Them All Himself? Unless He Were The Providence Which Numbers All
Hairs Of The Head, He Had Not Got The Start Of The Majestic World So Far
As That, However Myriad-Minded We May Consider Him. An Instinct Which
Would Have Rendered Him Aware Of Each And Every Individual Of Five
Thousand That He Had Employed Once Only Would Be As Inconceivable As
That Of Falstaff, Which Made Him Discern The Heir-Apparent In Prince Hal
When Disguised As A Highwayman. In Short, Shakespeare Could Not Be
Conscious Of All The Words He Had Once Used, More Than Brigham Young
Could Recognize All The Wives He Had Once Wedded.
In The Absence Of Other Theories Concerning The Reasons For
Shakespeare'S _Apa? ?E?? Mue?A_ Being So Abundant, I Throw Out A
Suggestion Of My Own Till A Better One Shall Supplant It.
Shakespeare'S Forte Lay In characterization, And That Endlessly
Diversified. But When He Sketched Each Several Character It Seems That
He Was Never Content Till He Had Either Found Or Fabricated The Aptest
Words Possible For Representing Its Form And Pressure Most True To Life.
No Two Characters Being Identical In any Particular More Than Two Faces
Are, No Two Descriptions, As Drawn By His Genius, Could Repeat Many Of
The Selfsame Characterizing Words. Each Of His Vocables Thus Became Like
Each Of The Seven Thousand Constituents Of A Locomotive, Which Fits The
One Niche It Was Ordained To Fill, But Everywhere Else Is Out Of Place,
And Even _Dislocated_. The More Numerous His Ethical Differentiations,
The More His Language Was Differentiated.
His Personages Were As Multifarious As Have Been Portrayed By The Whole
Band Of Italian Painters; But, As A Wizard In Words, He Resembled The
Magician In Mosaic, Who Can Delineate In Stone Every Feature Of Those
Portraits Because He Can Discriminate And Imitate Shades Of Color More
Numberless Than Even Shakespeare'S Words.
It Is Hard To Believe That The Shakespearian Characters Were Born, Like
Athene From The Brain Of Zeus, In Panoplied Perfection. They Grew. The
Play Of _Troilus_ Was A Dozen Years In Growth. According To The Best
Commentators, "Shakespeare, After Having Sketched Out A Play On The
Fashion Of His Youthful Taste And Skill, Returned In after Years To
Enlarge It, Remodel It, And Enrich It With The Matured Fruits Of Years
Of Observation And Reflection. _Love'S Labor Lost_ First Appeared In
Volume 26 Title 1 (Lippincott'S Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science) Pg 113Print With The Annunciation That It Was 'Newly Corrected And Augmented,'
And _Cymbeline_ Was An Entire _Rifacimento_ Of An Early Dramatic
Attempt, Showing Not Only Matured Fulness Of Thought,
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